Field Guide to Happily Ever After
by arysani
Summary: He taught her to swing dance when she was three, and soothed a breaking heart at sixteen. At eighteen, Claire reaches a jumping-off point. Quil/Claire, post-BD. Rated T for a cuss.


A/N: This spiraled out into oblivion - I meant it to be much shorter. But somehow it just...kept going. Also, the random Jacob and Ness stuff was a surprise to me too. Apparently I have some anger issues to work out still regarding that. But yeah. Everyone should read _Eve Green_ by Susan Fletcher because it is one of the most amazing books. I had meant to follow her storyline a little more closely, but, as happens, the story didn't want to go there. So I just used Ms. Fletcher as a jumping off point - which, if you haven't read the book, you wouldn't necessarily see in here, but I gave you the quote, one of my very favorites, to put you where I was while writing this.

As per usual, Stephenie Meyer owns all her stuff, and Susan Fletcher owns hers. I'm just making mudpies here.

* * *

_"Of course I remember. I remember my aching back and the drizzle, and the throb of my piercing in the top of my ear. I'd left university because of him. I'd learnt that I didn't want to be anywhere he wasn't, that I physically couldn't stand it. I was eighteen; he was in his early thirties. I came up the lane and found him standing there, under the limes, wearing blue." - _from _Eve Green _by Susan Fletcher

# # # #

He was at my third birthday - my first real memory. We danced in the kitchen to some song on the radio that I can never remember until I hear it again and go "oh, that's the song". It wasn't anything sweet like me standing on his feet, but I remember jumping, and I remember him twirling me around his waist like a swing-dancer.

He hasn't been able to do that since I was eight.

I remember for the longest time only seeing him in the summertime. He was inexorably linked in my mind with swimming in the lake and tubing and looking through musty-smelling field guides trying to match bugs and leaves we collected on hikes and strolls in the woods. He would sit on the porch with me, our hands dirty and smearing the glossy pages, and he had a habit of licking his finger to turn a page - I remember giggling at the face he made when he forgot his fingers were covered with dirt and possibly worm guts. I remember telling him dirt was full of worm poo - I'd learned that in fourth grade science class. I remember he made a face.

It's strange, because I also remember a big dog, but it must have died years ago, because just now, I can't recall seeing it since I was at least twelve. There were several big dogs, I recall, and I have a picture of me that my auntie Em took - me in some pink and white frothy monstrosity with a look of pure glee as I am in the middle of four very large dogs. I'm covering my face, but not very well, as you can see one eye and most of my mouth - I was apparently losing teeth left and right, because there are visible gaps.

When I was sixteen, I was in love with Kevin Lorry. His parents were British, and he always said "Lorry, like the truck" when he introduced himself. He took me to prom, and I brought him along that summer before my senior year. We were going to go to the same college, in Seattle, but he was going with his parents back to England for a month, and I wouldn't see him. So I wanted to make sure he could come with me for a few days back to my happy place. Auntie Em and Uncle Sam and my cousins and more uncles and aunts and cousins-in-spirit than a person ever needed. Ness was older than me, and I didn't like her one bit. But I'd had to "play nice" with her since the first summer we met, and I knew manners were important. I dreaded introducing Kevin to her, because she was the sort of pretty that always seemed to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. And she flirted with everything that moved. She and Uncle Jacob were strange, and I didn't understand them - but my Auntie Em assured me that when I was older, she would explain it to me.

Ness had the cousins, and some folks I didn't know, all gathered around her as she showed off her cartwheels and other crappy gymnastic skills I'd seen on TV. Her shirt kept flipping up, showing off her lacy bra, and I started to really feel like she was too old to be acting like she did. It made me uncomfortable, and I didn't like being in her company if I didn't have to.

So I sat with my chin in my hands on the front step, watching them ooh and ahh over her, when he came and sat next to me.

"Hey kid."

"Hi," I said distractedly. He was the only one who ever got away with calling me 'kid'. He said it was a term of endearment, like 'how ya doin', kid?'.

"Showing off again?"

"Yep." I wasn't in the mood to share anything except one-word answers. I couldn't take my eyes off of them. Kevin was right there, whooping and hollering like the rest of them.

"So, who's the boy you brought with you?"

"Kevin. Lorry. Like the truck."

"That the boy took you to prom?"

"Yep."

"Well shouldn't you be..." he paused, and I looked at him. He wasn't looking at me, and his words sounded forced. "...making out in the back of his car or something?"

I turned back and put my chin back in my hands for a second before leaning forward a bit, and folding my arms on my knees, resting my head sideways, still keeping the rowdy crowd in my line of sight.

"He wants to see Ness's tricks."

"That's just what they are, though. Tricks. Tricks get old eventually, munchkin," he said quietly, and rubbed slow circles on my back. I tipped over so I laid my head on his leg, and he leaned back to make room for me, still rubbing the circles on my back.

I don't know why I did it, but a tear escaped, and I moved to wipe it away before it landed on him. I didn't want him to know I cried.

"Hey, hey, what's this all about?" his voice was still so quiet.

"Nothing. Nothing," I insisted, squinting my eyes and rubbing away all the tears that even _thought_ about leaking out.

"You sure?"

"Yep. Yeah. I don't know," I inhaled deeply. "I don't think he loves me."

"Whatever made you think that?"

"He's sixteen. Boys are so stupid at sixteen," I asserted, like it was something I had always known instead of an epiphany I just had.

"That's true."

"I really thought I loved him, because he's a great boyfriend," I spoke into his jeans. "We did our homework together, and he held my hand at the movies, and he kissed me after prom. I think he thought I was weird, because I didn't want to do anything other than kissing."

His hand paused on my back. "Did he..."

I looked up at him, sitting up, wiping the little wet spot at my temple that I couldn't reach lying down. "No! No, of course not. Just...I think he expected more. Though I don't know _what_ more," I started, and then let out a short barking laugh at the look on his face. "No, okay, I know _that_, but it's not like anyone else gave it up on prom night - everyone knows Missy Jackson gave it up _months_ ago."

He snorted through his nose and took his hand off me, lacing his fingers together on his lap. He briefly touched the wet spot on his jeans where that pool in the corner of my eye that slid to my temple had soaked in a bit.

"It's so weird talking to you about this."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because you're an _adult_. It's just...it's weird."

He shrugged. "Just because Kevin Lorry-like-the-truck took you to your prom and gave you your first kiss doesn't mean you're going to spend the rest of your life with him. Boys _are_ stupid at sixteen. But they get over it. Eventually." He smiled. "Then we just _get_ stupid over girls."

"I've never seen you get stupid over a girl."

"Just waiting for the right one," he said, and pulled my head to lips, kissing me gently on the temple before standing up and walking inside.

# # # # #

The summer before I went to college, I didn't bring Kevin Lorry-like-the-truck with me to the reservation. He'd found greener pastures with Missy Jackson, but I would have put money on _that_ not lasting through the summer.

That summer is both crystal clear in my mind and has a strange haze to it - like some of the things I remember couldn't possibly have happened.

I didn't swim in the lake too much - I sat in the sun a lot, out on the docks, and pretended not to notice how many beers Jacob Black was putting back these days. I never saw Ness anymore, and no one talked about her. It was like, after that summer with the cartwheels, everyone forgot she existed. I didn't forget, but I didn't really care either.

I could tell Jacob Black didn't forget.

"You know, someday someone's going to fuck you up good," he said with a slur to his voice. I'm not sure if he was talking to me in particular, or just because I was a body wandering near enough to where he had his lawn chair set up by the edge of the lake.

I remember going back and telling my Auntie Em that Jacob was drunk again, and I remember Uncle Sam and Uncle Quil sitting at the kitchen table not talking. Em just nodded at me with tight lips, and asked me to go check on the boys. I wasn't stupid, I knew that was just an excuse to make me leave.

I didn't see him the rest of the summer.

But I suppose that was partly because my attention was elsewhere.

I'd come back from sunning myself, and had one of those moments. Those epiphany moments that hit you hard in the chest. I was sure it was just hormones at the time, but that didn't make it any less real.

Quil had been chopping wood. With his shirt off.

I'd seen him shirtless thousands of times. It seemed that all my uncles had a strange affection for nudity. But right at that moment, it made me shiver. I couldn't take my eyes off him. Immediately I felt disgusting, because it was _Quil_ and that was just _weird_. Besides that, he was _old_.

He must have felt me watching, because he put down the axe and turned to face me, grabbing his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face.

"Hey kid."

For the first time, I hated that he called me that. I wasn't a kid. I was eighteen in three weeks. I didn't reply, just stood there like an idiot.

"What's up? Having a nice afternoon?"

"Yeah."

"I was just about to get some lunch - want something?"

"I think, well, you know, going to...to Em's," I stuttered like a fool.

"Well, yeah. She's making her potato salad," he replied, like it was obvious that no one missed out on Em's potato salad. Sometimes I wondered if she ever wanted to be anything more than a cook and a mother. She certainly mothered other people's kids (even summer strays like myself), and always seemed to be cooking.

"Um. Yeah."

"Hold up, I'll walk with you," he said, and with a quick flick, lodged the axe in a chunk of wood so no one would trip over it and give themselves a spleenectomy.

He was pulling back on his shirt, and I watched him boldly, like it was okay when he couldn't see me. The tag stuck out, and I crooked my finger to have him lean down, but when I went to tuck it in, I laughed.

Standing back up, he narrowed an eye at me. "What's so funny?"

"It's on inside-out."

He pulled it away from his chest, as though to verify my assertion, and bent a shoulder into his line of view to see the seams. "So it is," he laughed, and started to take it off again. "You just want to see me without my shirt on," he said, voice muffled by cotton.

It was just a joke. He always joked like that around me these days. And I had always been able to fire one back at him, about how he was nothing special to look at, and I'd seen it at least a thousand times and managed to maintain my wits so far.

This time I just laughed. I tried to make it sound sarcastic, but it might have sounded as awkward as it felt. He put his arm around my shoulders as we walked, and he smelled like sweat and somehow the feel of his ribs against my body made my heart flutter. He was warm, and he shortened his strides to allow me to keep pace with him. I slid my arm, boldly, around his waist, and he just looked at me and smiled.

My cheeks burned all through lunch. I told my aunt that I had a lot of packing to do before I had to leave, and drove home a week early.

# # # # #

Boys in college, at eighteen and nineteen and twenty, were just as stupid as boys at sixteen.

My roommate was great for helping me reinforce this idea. She was in my American Lit class, and was already officially an English major.

After the second failed movie outing with the second boy who asked me out on a date which ended in disaster, it was her bed I threw myself on.

"I know I haven't kissed a lot of guys, but that was just wrong," I said, arm thrown over my eyes in dramatic distress.

"Too much saliva?"

I sat up a little, balanced on my elbows. "Is that always why it's wrong?"

"Usually, yeah. Or they try to give you a tonsillectomy. Girls, however, know what's what," she said with a smile and a wink.

"I'm not going to swap teams because of a few salivary mishaps."

She looked me up and down once and clucked her tongue. "Too bad." She turned back to her computer. "So, you going home for Christmas?"

"Yep."

"Got any hotties back home?"

"No," I said quickly, because Quil chopping wood flashed across my mind's eye.

"Well that's a lie if I ever heard one."

"He's my _uncle_."

She made a face. "Eeew."

"No, I mean, he's not _related_-related, he's just...one of my aunt's friends. Or my uncle's. Whatever. He's older."

"Oh yeah? How much older? Because you know, there's a window."

"I actually don't know," I said, partly to myself.

"Is his name Quil?"

My eyes widened. "How do you know that?"

She grinned. "You say his name in your sleep," she taunted, and went back to her computer.

"I do NOT!" I insisted, and threw a pillow at her.

"Hey, this is how lesbian porn starts, you know."

"Fine," I said, a little forcefully, and walked over and took the pillow back from her, and went and sat on my bed and pouted. "I really say his name in my sleep?"

"Only once or twice. But it's real breathy-like," she said with a girlish leer.

I hid my face in the pillow and muffled my exasperated scream.

"Are you done?"

"Yes," I said, via pillow.

"Maybe you should see him when you go home. Maybe he's not all that, and you're just frustrated with the quality of the pickings around this place."

I pulled it at away from my face and picked at a thread. "Maybe."

# # # # #

I told my mom I was going to see Auntie Em, and she just told me to drive careful, because there was a thunderstorm brewing, and she didn't want me to get caught on the black ice when it turned cold. She had me pack an overnight bag, because she would rather I stayed there than drove home in bad weather.

The rain started three miles outside of the reservation, and I pulled into my aunt's driveway and sprinted onto the porch. I grabbed the doorknob, and it wouldn't budge. I jiggled it, because they never locked it, and knocked rapidly, because the rain was fast becoming cold.

Peering in the windows, I saw the lights were off. I couldn't imagine where they'd be. Then I had the thought that maybe I should have called first. I never called first, and it had never been a problem before. Now, damp and increasingly cold, I wish I wasn't the only one with a cell phone in this place.

"Hey! They're not home!" a voice yelled from two houses away. I turned on the porch and saw him, standing with the screen door open, typically sans shirt.

"Quil! Where'd they go?" I yelled over the rain.

"Movies! Something for Hannah's birthday!"

Shit. I'd forgotten it was her birthday today. Of course they were doing something special. I was a lousy cousin. I didn't even bring her a present.

"You have a key?" I yelled.

"Maybe!" he shouted back, and the screen door slammed shut. I inhaled deeply, knowing I was going back out into the cold rain, and sprinted from Em's porch to his.

He opened the door with a key in his hand, and suddenly noticed my drenched state.

"Hey," he reached out to take me by the shoulders. "You're freezing! Get in here, warm up by the fireplace," he pulled me in and shut the door.

I had been in Quil's house a hundred thousand times. This time I felt like I was taking a page out of a romance novel. It made me shiver at the thought of seducing him in my wet-rat state - it was simply too cliché for my own good. As was the thought of me _seducing_ anybody, much less some older guy who'd never so much as cast a lingering gaze in my direction my entire life.

He pulled me over to the couch, and was about to insist I sit down before he seemed to realize that if I was wet, so he couch would become.

"Wait here, I think I might have something dry for you to wear."

"I have clothes in my car," I said, and he looked out the window.

"I don't want to get wet," he said, making a face. "It's cold out there."

"Har har."

He smiled. "Har har, indeed. Stand right there. Or, better yet, go take a hot shower to warm up. I'll find you something dry to put on."

I stripped off my wet clothes and jumped in the shower. The hot water stopped the shivers, and it woke me up a bit. He knocked on the door, and I heard it open. I opened the curtain just a bit, and he reached a hand in and tossed in some clothes, which landed on the sink and on the floor.

"Sorry!" he said, and closed the door.

Clad in his t-shirt, his shorts (I had to roll the waist four times), and his bathrobe, I emerged with all the pertinent parts covered, and drying my hair with one hand.

"Come here, come sit by the fireplace," he said, and stood in front of me, now with a shirt on. He took the towel from me and began to buff-dry my hair.

When he was finished, he said "See? All better," and smiled.

And then I kissed him.

He was surprised, that much I could tell, because he carefully extricated himself by taking me by the shoulders, towel still clutched in his hand.

"Hey. Whoa."

I didn't know what to say. My heart was beating at least a million miles a minute, and I couldn't figure out anything to say, or even understand what I was thinking. His eyes searched mine, darting back and forth, like somehow he could read my mind and figure it all out if I just gave him a minute. I guess what surprised me most is that he didn't walk away. He held my shoulders, just looking at me.

Then his fingers touched my jaw, and he leaned in, closing his eyes, and like I was in a trance, I closed mine too.

His lips were soft, and they moved over mine, helping me open my mouth under his. The first dart of tongue was hesitant, and I had to have something to anchor me in the here and now. I touched his ribs with the awkwardness of my age and experience while he proceeded to educate me in how a man kissed differently than a boy.

There were no salivary malfunctions.

He pulled away first, eyes still closed, almost like he was afraid, and I watched him slowly open them to look at me.

"Wow."

He said it with such reverence, I felt my insides turn to goo. No boy had ever kissed me and said 'wow'. Usually the wow was reserved for the under-the-shirt feel-up.

I laughed uneasily, and he reached his hands up to cup my face, and sweep my hair out of my eyes.

"You're beautiful," he said, and I kissed him again.

# # # # #

I had thought I would keep it a secret, but when Em and Sam returned, children in varying stages of sleep in tow, I helped her tuck them in, and I blurted it out.

"I kissed Quil."

She straightened up from tucking Hannah into her bed and just looked at me in the semi-dark.

"You did." It felt like a statement more than a question.

I nodded, blushing my embarrassment like I was ashamed. "I did. And I'm sorry. I know...I know he's your friend...and it just sorta happened, and..."

She hugged me. She wrapped her arms around me and twisted me back and forth and I didn't know what to do but hug her back.

"I'm glad," she said, smiling at me.

I don't think I could have been more confused if I tried.

# # # # #

When someone explained it to me later, a serious kitchen-table discussion, it had weirded me out a little. Realizing someone has been waiting all your life for you is bound to sound a little overwhelming.

Em said they weren't sure I would ever love him (but I realized I kinda always had), and he would have been content in my happiness if I hadn't chosen him. He would have had to be. As long as I was happy. It felt weird and I wondered how he'd managed to restrain himself.

I asked him, one night, how he managed to put up with it for so long, and he shrugged, pulling me close under the sheet. "Sometimes I really don't know. That bikini, the summer before you went to college, that wasn't very good for my blood pressure."

I laughed into his chest. "When I saw you chopping wood, I almost jumped you right then."

This time it was his turn to laugh. "You did?"

"You do have a certain appeal, shirtless and all sweaty."

"Oh, so _that's_ why you keep trying to get me into bed!" he tried to play at sounding affronted and didn't quite pull it off.

"Yes," I said very seriously. "I only want you for your body."

"Well that's good, because I only want you for your great tits."

I tried to smack him for that one, but he just pulled me closer and kissed the protest right out of my mouth.

"Love you," he whispered into the darkness, and I smiled.


End file.
